Remind me again why any reasonable person expects the federal government to obey the law.

The Trump administration this week gravely imperiled the nation’s water supply by curtailing federal regulations over dry land. Or at least that’s the story the media is hustling. A Washington Post headline epitomized the fretting: “Trump proposal would limit protections for U.S. waterways” by narrowing the definition of wetlands.

The Post did not mention that mere puddles or land that is dry 350 days a year have been categorized as “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act. Perhaps the wackiest example is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “glancing geese” test. If migrating geese glance down and consider stopping at a water hole, and the geese are on a flight that crosses state lines, EPA automatically has jurisdiction over that water hole and the surrounding land. The EPA even claimed a right to prohibit landowners from permitting photographers on their land to take pictures of the birds.